


Lead the Way

by hunters_retreat



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Ending, M/M, Not the first one to do it, Post-CoS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 03:11:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17820716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hunters_retreat/pseuds/hunters_retreat
Summary: For two years it plagued him during the day and haunted him at night.





	Lead the Way

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anotherFMAfan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anotherFMAfan/gifts).



> To my lovely ladies in the FMA Chat :P Write about 5 sentence fics and just good old chat fun. To anotherfmafan for the prompt of "The only word(s) that could have made him/her stop at that point"

 

 

“Don’t make me lose you again.”

The words drifted into his ear and Ed stopped in his tracks.  He needed to go.  He had to go.  No one else could do this.  But the words stopped him because while there had never been anything between them, Ed couldn’t deny the pull that was there.  He couldn’t deny that the last two years had nearly killed him.  There had been too much unknown when he’d gone to the other side, and not knowing what had happened to Mustang had been bad enough. 

No, not bad enough.  It had been a never-ending ache.  It was worse that the loss of his automail. He thought of him constantly, dreamed of him at night.  He believed that he would know if something truly horrible had happened to Alphonse.  He believed that his brother was alive and well and that he’d given up everything to make that happen.  He had no guarantees with Mustang.  He had no way of knowing if the man had managed to achieve what he set out to that night, or if he’d died in the attempt, along with his team.  For two years it plagued him during the day and haunted him at night.

To see Mustang now, even with one eye covered in a story he had yet to learn, made him yearn to cross the distance for just one minute.  No one would blame him for one selfish moment, if he just reached across to the man he had loved but never held, adored but never dared confess to.  There had been too much against them and never enough time and space to figure out his own heart, let alone how something like that could work between them.

This though, those words.  It made it into something else.  Not just Ed’s pain.  Not just Ed’s loss.  This was both of them.  And he’d heard about Mustang’s exile, and wondered why he’d accepted it, but he understood now.  It wasn’t acceptance.  It was grieving. 

Ed didn’t have a choice.  He had to go.  He had to close the gate and make sure nothing from that side ever came through.  It was a sacrifice he had to make.

“Come with us,” it wasn’t Ed’s voice, but Al’s. 

Ed whipped his head back around to glare at his brother because Ed would make this sacrifice but he could never ask it of Mustang.  He had too much to do, too much to live for on this side of the world.  He couldn’t ask him to return to the ugly world he had to return to.

He felt an arm around his waist though, felt the press of a body against his own and looked up in surprise as Mustang was there, with him.

“I can’t ask you to come,” Ed said, though he wanted him too.

“Good thing I don’t need your permission then, isn’t it?”

There was a fucking battle going on around them, but they were going to finish this off for good and Roy was with him, not just in the battle but in this thing – fuck – in love and they were going to do this together.  Ed took his one selfish moment and leaned up and Roy met him halfway as their lips met and tongues entwined for just a short moment. 

Ed smiled up at Roy and let out a deep sigh.  “You ready to save the world, Bastard?” Ed asked.

“Lead the way, Fullmetal.”

 


End file.
